Gerrymandering has become a catch-all for what’s wrong with the American political system. The way we draw legislative districts takes the blame for partisan polarization, uncompetitive elections, marginalizing minorities and even rigging elections in favor of one party or the other. Gerrymandering has received so much scorn lately, you could be forgiven for thinking all […]
The Supreme Court does not compute. Or at least some of its members would rather not. The justices, the most powerful jurists in the land, seem to have a reluctance — even an allergy — to taking math and statistics seriously. For decades, the court has struggled with quantitative evidence of all kinds in a […]
By not opening his mouth, Justice Anthony Kennedy may have tipped his hand in one of the biggest Supreme Court cases of the year. If history is any indication — and although it’s a handy guide, it’s hardly infallible — things don’t look good for extreme partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court is hearing a case […]
Is partisan gerrymandering constitutional? And if not, how is it to be measured? Those are the questions at the heart of one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases of the year, which the justices will hear next week. How the court answers those questions in the case, Gill v. Whitford, has the potential to […]